


In Due Season

by botanique (flamboyantgentleman)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (a lot gay), Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mostly Canon Compliant, PTSD, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, not in My Fic, trauma boys, very subtle period-typical homophobia, what is infinity war, with a little gay peppered in
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 14:09:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15220862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamboyantgentleman/pseuds/botanique
Summary: This is the story of their endless numbered days, and of the love that endures it all.





	In Due Season

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Brooklyn, 1940 ]

Bucky comes home smelling like whiskey and women’s perfume.

He’s quiet at first, stifling a curse when he stumbles on the coat rack, eyes darting guiltily to the bed where Steve rests. “Oh,” he says louder when he notices Steve sitting up. Steve can see his grin grow lopsided in the dim light. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Steve echoes. His voice sounds small. Bucky’s is rich and warm, even after just two words, still thick with the kind of charm he saves just for the dance hall.

“I didn’t think you’d still be awake.” Bucky kneels down to unlace his shoes, still watching Steve’s silhouette through his lashes.

Steve holds up his sketchbook guiltily and offers a half-shrug. “I was drawing the cats, down in the alley. Candle just went out.” 

“Candle?” Bucky scoffs, straightening and kicking off his boots. “What, you couldn’t find the light switch?”

“Bucky,” Steve warns. He’s torn between fondness and some kind of – what is it? Fear? There’s always a lump in his throat when Bucky comes home like this, laden with the memories of new places and new women. Usually, he just pretends to be asleep. “We can’t keep hiking the bills just because I caught another bout of insomnia.”

Bucky huffs and crosses the room, perching on the edge of Steve’s bed. Steve pretends not to notice how he wavers just slightly, limbs loose from a night of dancing and drinking. “Then maybe you oughta come out with me next time, Stevie. Really. They got this new dance, I’ll teach it to you, it’s wild – “

Steve laughs. “Buck,” he says. “You don’t want me embarrassing you like that.” It’s easier this way, pretending he just doesn’t _want_ to. Pretending he’ll embarrass Bucky in front of some broad. They both know that he’s good at playing wallflower, good at keeping his clumsy feet off the dance floor, good at just smiling and nodding from the fringes while Bucky sweeps a stranger across the room. It’s easier than acknowledging the truth – that he wants _desperately_ to join in, to feel wild and free the way a night on the town is supposed to make someone feel. Except the truth is that the cigar smoke is always too much for him, in the clubs, and even one silly glass of whiskey makes him clutch his stomach like a prayer. The walk alone usually winds him – forget dancing. The _truth_ is that Bucky always ends up taking care of him on the nights they go dancing together, too busy nursing one of Steve’s endless maladies to have any real fun. Bucky always wants him to have a good time when they go out, so resolute, and it breaks Steve’s heart the way he _tries._

They’re still good memories, most of them. He likes when they’re walking home, when things are quieter and everything’s a bit yellow under the scattered street lamps. He likes talking over the distant buzz of music about anything, everything, Bucky’s arm slung over his shoulder and Bucky’s mouth at his ear. Only Bucky rarely gets nights off at the docks, and Steve’ll be damned if he jeopardizes those few moments he has for himself. Not when he already does things that make Steve’s throat swell with guilt – like spending his last few pennies on some silly new tincture ( _Miracle Cure, instant results gua-ran-teed!_ ), or when the pipes freeze over and he has to run downstairs to draw Steve some water. Steve always wakes up with a glass on the nightstand and Bucky’s blanket draped over him, _always_ , and he knows the extra trouble usually makes Buck late for work.

He does enough. Too much, really, and the least Steve can do is let him have some _peace_ from all of it. 

“Nah,” Bucky says by way of reply, just a little drunkenly. “Nah, you wouldn’t be saying that if you saw how those girls _move_. It’s hardly dancing, I’m telling you.” 

Steve blushes just a little bit. Bucky has that boyish grin, the kind that means he’s about to talk about the sort of things that make Steve stutter and squirm. “Alright, hotshot,” Steve intercedes, because he can still play this game even if he’s a little bit of a prude, “what’s her name?”

“Pauline.” Bucky stops, and thinks, and clears his throat. “Patricia. No… mm. Prudence?”

Steve laughs and socks Bucky weakly on the arm. “You’re horrible.” 

“Am not,” Bucky says, catching Steve’s fist and thumbing reflexively over his knuckles. He holds on for a moment, almost tender, before his thoughts catch up to his actions and he lets go. “Pretty sure she called me by some ex-boyfriend’s name when we were…”

Steve raises his eyebrows. Something in him sinks simultaneously, making the heartbeat in his chest feel sluggish and uninspired. 

“Necking. Just necking.” Bucky swats at him playfully. If he notices the way Steve’s smile droops at the corners, he doesn’t say anything. “Jesus, Rogers, you think I’m some kind of hussy?”

“You really want me to answer that?” Steve asks, making himself busy with tucking his sketchbook away in the nightstand drawer. He doesn’t know why, but he can’t look Bucky in the eyes right now and watch the memory of someone else flit across his face.

Bucky is quiet for a moment, long enough that Steve looks back at him. “Say, Rogers,” he starts, smile shifting. “When are you gonna get some dame of your own?” 

Steve opens his mouth to say something smart and then closes it, abruptly. He doesn’t have an answer for that.

Thankfully though, Bucky does. “You’re holding out on ‘em, you know. Forget muscles and uniforms and all that red-blooded American shit – girls like it sweet.”

Steve tries to imagine Bucky being sweet on a girl, tucking her hair behind her ear the way he does sometimes with Steve. Doing other things Steve has never done, not with anyone. _Certainly_ not with Bucky.

“Yeah,” Bucky continues, almost to himself now. He reaches an arm out to ruffle Steve’s hair, cupping his face and tilting his chin up like he’s appraising him. “Sweet and good and noble. A real unsung hero. We’ll make a ladies’ man out of you yet.”

Steve licks his lips nervously, shrinking under Bucky’s gaze. He’s not good at this the way Bucky is, putting himself on display, charming his way in and out of people’s lives like it’s nothing. “I don’t know about that,” he says with a weak smile. “I’m no poster boy.”

Bucky gets like this sometimes, dogging on him. It’s not like Bucky can’t _see_ all the things that make them different – Steve’s knobby knees and wiry arms askew next to Bucky, tall and solid and irrefutably handsome – it’s just that Bucky doesn’t seem to think they make a difference. Steve knows better. He’s watched a hundred times as a woman’s eyes light on him from across the room, and then on Bucky. He can see it in his head, her hips swaying as she crosses the floor, her mouth curling into a smile that isn’t meant for him. He doesn’t even bother to stick around anymore to play wingman. Bucky doesn’t need it. 

Bucky’s hand drifts down to squeeze his forearm. “Practice makes perfect.” There’s a note of mischief tucked into his voice, just for Steve. They both know Steve says it all the time, when he’s drawing or cooking or doing some miserable excuse for push-ups. “That’s what you need, huh? Practice.” 

“You’re full of it,” Steve says, trying to pull the blanket over him. Bucky catches it and bunches it up, casting it to the other side of the bed.

“Hey,” he says, letting go of Steve and holding his palms out like he’s making a sales pitch. “Hey, you can practice on me.”

Steve looks at him incredulously, not even bothering to entertain the sudden burst of heat in his chest. “Are you still drunk?” 

Bucky just shakes his head and grins wolfishly, moving closer into Steve’s space. “You can’t tell me you aren’t tired of practicing on your pillow.”

There's always something about Buck's smile in these moments - something private, goading, like the two of them are in on a secret nobody else knows. He smiles that way when he’s rescuing Steve from a fight, shoulders squared up against Steve’s and fists out, voice warm even when he’s admonishing Steve for _always getting yourself into trouble, Rogers, Jesus_. It comes out sometimes when he’s drunk, too, playful and unhinged enough to press Steve’s buttons. Steve can smell it stronger now, the whiskey that clings to the edges of Bucky’s mouth. He probably still tastes like the stuff.

“Here’s how it is,” Bucky continues, not waiting for Steve’s weak protests. “You want yourself a pretty girl, don’t you?” 

"Well yeah," Steve says reflexively. He might as well indulge Bucky – he’s right, in a way, even if Steve would rather curl up and forget that it’ll ever be anything but him and Buck against the world. He works a hand through his hair and tries to imagine his perfect woman. Dark hair, light eyes. Lean, taut frame. A perfect, curving jaw. Stubble, maybe.

_Oh god_ , he thinks. It all comes to the surface at once, clawing past the fringes of his psyche to sit heavy in his chest. It’s been there all night, really. Just waiting.

Panic rises in his throat and he closes his eyes under the pretense of thought, willing his expression to stay neutral. He wants Bucky, wants the fumbled kisses at the doorstep and those big hands holding his, wants to hear Bucky murmur _baby_ and know it’s meant for _him_. He’s gotten so good at lying to himself that sometimes he can mistake it for friendship or brotherhood or any number of things that are more palatable. Anything but this, this monstrous need that wells like a hunger inside of him.

“What does she look like?” Bucky whispers. Steve’s eyes are still closed and he doesn’t want to open them, afraid he’ll see some kind of horrified recognition on Bucky’s face. It takes a moment for him to remember Bucky asked him a question. 

“She’s –,” he says haltingly, wondering if he ought to joke about Bucky having some kind of long-lost sister. That would probably only rile him up more. He finally cracks and eye and startles at how close Bucky’s gotten, resting his face in his hands and watching Steve with a mix of amusement and… something Steve can’t place. It makes him nervous, hot-cold all the way down to his toes wondering if he’s given too much away.

He swallows, sets his jaw, and decides maybe he needs to put an end to this before he gets himself in too deep. “This is stupid, Bucky.”

“Aw,” Bucky crows, knotting his brows in feigned disappointment. Whatever it was that Steve couldn’t recognize in his expression disappears, melting away under his veneer of bravado. “ _You’re_ the one that always says it. ‘Practice makes perfect.’ ‘Sides, I know you have a good imagination knocking around in there.”

Steve just shakes his head and forces the words out, hollow where they should be warm. “You’re a real jerk for using my own words against me, you know that?”

Bucky bats his eyelashes in a way that would make Steve laugh if he weren’t burning up on the inside. “It’s because you think I wouldn’t make a pretty girl, isn’t it?” His mouth edges into a crooked, disarming smile at the words. Steve’s sure that if he made eye contact any longer, Bucky would wink at him. _God help me._

“I don’t know,” Steve says, willing back the waves of guilt and yearning. He draws his knees to his chest and then kicks them out again, thinking better of it. Bucky _knows_ him, knows what he looks like when he’s trying to hide. “Maybe you ought to go borrow some of Mrs. Holstein’s lipstick to make sure.” 

Bucky chuckles, deep in his throat. It’s a beautiful sound. “I’m just looking out for you here, Rogers,” he says, hand to his heart. “My first kiss was awful – I was _awful_. I had no idea what I was doing.”

Steve tries – and fails – to imagine that, Bucky being anything but deft and warm and ever-so-capable. He lets his eyes fall to Bucky’s lips for just the briefest instant, curiosity welling inside him. They’re red and a little wet, curving up to meet the rest of his handsome face, and just the sight sends Steve’s mind reeling with possibilities. Would his mouth be warm? Cold? Soft? Would he taste like whiskey, or maybe saltwater from the bay? 

He can’t – he can’t let Bucky tease like this, not when it means something so different to him. He hardens his resolve in that fraction of a moment, careful not to linger, drawing his gaze back up the planes of Bucky’s face to meet his eyes. And he stops.

Bucky’s looking at him like, _god_ , like he’s never seen him look before. Like Steve’s really something to _look_ at. His eyes are half-lidded and foreign, suddenly fixed on Steve, carved from the shadows that stretch down across his skin. 

Steve falters, swallows, feeling his lashes flutter with disbelief. Maybe this is part of the joke. Maybe he’s imagining it. Maybe _Bucky_ is the one that’s gone crazy. “Yeah, alright,” he hears himself say, distantly. _No. No, abort, don’t be weak like this._ “Show me what you’ve got, Barnes.” 

Bucky’s face shifts to surprise, and then humor, that indefinable quality that has Steve breathless still glinting in his gaze. “Okay,” he says as if he’s just catching up all of a sudden. Some part of Steve feels a little smug for catching him off guard like this. “Okay. So you… you find a girl you really like, and she likes you, and you think she’ll let you have a taste.” _Just a taste._ “First thing’s first, you gotta figure out where to put your hands. Don’t want ‘em getting in the way, yeah?”

Steve nods, but doesn’t hear him. He can’t hear anything over the sound of his pulse hammering in his ears, a steady mantra of _you stupid selfish bastard_ playing like a broken record in the back of his head.

Bucky cups Steve’s face in his hands, warm and calloused. “Like this. Or…” One of his hands breaks away to trace the length of Steve’s jaw, coming to rest in the slight strands at the base of his neck. “Like _this_. That way you can pull her in nice and easy.”

_Nice and easy _, Steve thinks. He’s so done for.__

____

____

“You have to tilt your head, meet her lips at an angle. And then you… and then you just – ”

To Bucky’s credit, he doesn’t hesitate. He pulls Steve in just like he said he would, nice and easy, and Steve doesn’t have time to think before Bucky’s mouth is on his. 

He can’t help it – he _melts _. Bucky tastes like whiskey, just the way Steve thought he would, bitter and smoky-sweet. His lips are a little chapped, just enough that Steve has another texture to reckon with on top of warm-smooth-pliant, and when he shifts his stubble scrapes against Steve’s virgin skin in the most incredible way.__

____

____

Steve shivers and exhales, letting Bucky tilt his head just so. It’s a full two seconds before he’s convinced it’s real, it’s happening, finally gathering enough presence to lean in and move his mouth against Bucky’s. Bucky seems to like that, or at least pretends he does, because his fingers splay across the back of Steve’s head and – gently, so gently – ease him deeper into the kiss. 

Steve is getting eager and a little sloppy, and he can’t decide where to put his damn _hands_. First they’re on Bucky’s forearms, then his shoulders, then pressed open-palmed against his chest. He finds Bucky’s heartbeat by accident and it thrills him, that perfect living rhythm under his fingertips. He feels like he’s just starting to get the hang of it when Bucky shifts again and, _oh_ , parts his mouth under Steve’s. 

Something warm and wet trails across his bottom lip, and suddenly Steve is white-hot all over. He can feel it, Bucky’s _tongue_ , that daring flash of pink that darts across his mouth on hot days when Steve’s pretending not to look. He almost groans and then blushes as if he had anyway, sure that Bucky can feel the effect he’s having on Steve. Steve tries desperately to gather his wits and finally opens his mouth, uncertain. Bucky’s whole body shifts in response this time, curving up over him, the hand on his jaw drifting down to circle his waist. 

Steve is – well. He’s pretty sure this isn’t an act. He doesn’t know _what_ is happening, doesn’t have time to process each sensation before they’re on to the next. He’s breathless and dizzy and drunk with it, with Bucky, but even in the haze of it all the fear still starts to creep back in.

Maybe he’s doing a terrible job, or making a fool of himself, or – or –

He loses his rhythm and tilts his head at the same time Bucky does, noses bumping and teeth clacking together. “ _Oh,_ ” he breathes, his lungs filling up with _I’m sorry,_ but Bucky doesn’t falter. He just grins, _smug perfect bastard,_ laughing breathlessly into the kiss.

“It’s okay,” Bucky murmurs, lips brushing Steve’s as he speaks. “You’re doing great.” In one moment Steve wants to draw away, wants to curl up and die of embarrassment, and the next Bucky has him again.

He’ll never recover.

They keep on like that for a minute, or what Steve reckons might be one. He can only guess, lost in the endless stretch of Bucky’s searing touch – and when they finally part, it’s like he’s just coming up for air after a long, languid swim. Bucky exhales and rests his forehead against Steve’s.

There’s a long moment where they don’t talk. Steve keeps his eyes closed and tries to commit it all to memory – Bucky’s collared shirt bunched around his fingers. Bucky’s hand tangled in his hair. Bucky’s nose edging into the crease of his smile. 

He opens his eyes to find Bucky’s, looking back at him almost like he’s seeing Steve for the first time. It’s a perfect, fragile moment, balancing on the edge of some great precipice, and Steve just _knows_ with a sudden ache that it can’t last. 

Sure enough the world comes rushing back to meet them. It starts with a clang in the alleyway, a low curse and a high, shrill laugh, the stolen sound of urgent, lusting whispers carrying in the cold night. There’s keys jangling and a door shutting, and then – nothing. Steve can tell Bucky heard it too by the knowing look on his face, by the way the reverence in his eyes fades to something more boyish and uncomplicated.

“Hey,” he says finally. His voice is a little hoarse, and Steve is still close enough to feel the hot breath on his face. “Maybe that’ll be you someday, showing your old lady a good time.” 

Steve recoils. He doesn’t want to hear a damn word about any ladies – he’s ruined for all of them anyway. Bucky’s made sure of that.

“And now you know you have the chops for it. You’re welcome.” 

The guilt comes back like a chokehold.

For a second he’d almost convinced himself that there was – that there could be something _there_ , between them. He feels childish, ashamed, looking at Bucky now and seeing his own skinny, inconsequential body rise up to meet him. _Bucky_ , who could have half of Brooklyn if he wants it.

The same Bucky that must think this is some sick joke, some _thing_ boys do to goad each other on – and here Steve is taking advantage of it, of his best friend. He’s a pervert. He’s _worse_ than a pervert. He starts to shake with it, with the anger, at himself and at Bucky for being so damn good, so effortless and ignorant, so willing to offer Steve things he can’t give. 

“Hey,” Bucky says again, and he moves the hands Steve forgot were still encircling him. He rubs them up and down Steve’s forearms, feeling them shake. “Hey, Stevie. You okay?”

Bucky always calls him strong-willed – it’s one of the only compliments Steve will accept. He’s got an iron resolve that already failed him once tonight. It won’t happen again. “Yeah. I’m just…” _Lost. Lonely._ “Pissed that an ugly mug like you stole my first kiss.”

Bucky seems to accept that, grinning again in earnest. Steve hates lying to him like this. He’s not very good at it, and he knows if they go on like this much longer he’ll crumple under the weight. 

“Oh, can it.” Bucky laughs and jostles him. It’s familiar in a way that hurts, but Steve latches onto it anyway. _Normal._ “I thought I wasn’t half bad, for the kinda lady that would pick _your_ sorry ass.” 

Bucky bats his eyelashes again, silly with it, but through all of it he’s looking down at Steve like… like he just might kiss him again.

Steve doesn’t laugh at Bucky’s joke. He squeezes his eyes shut instead, reluctant. He can’t – he _can’t,_ god, he wants to, and his head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds as he turns away. “Stuff it,” he says, and then quieter: “it’s probably pretty late.”

He doesn’t watch the smile fall on Bucky’s face, but he can hear it in his voice. “Yeah, you’re right. Shouldn’t have kept you so late.” The bed rustles, and then Bucky’s shadow falls over him as he stands. “You’re going to be real insufferable tomorrow morning.”

“Your fault,” Steve tells him, so quiet it’s barely audible. Another lie.

Bucky’s hand rustles Steve’s hair as he passes, and then his shadow is gone. Steve hears him thunk down onto the other cot.

He doesn’t know what to do except curl in on himself, pulling his blanket under his chin and trying to ignore how his body _hums _all the places Bucky touched him. He thinks that maybe he ought to wipe his mouth, at least on the blanket, and then decides against it almost immediately – he’ll take this one thing, however small. However more condemned it might make him.__

____

____

“Night, Buck,” he whispers into the darkness, where this _thing_ between them now sits. 

“G’night Stevie,” Bucky says, followed by a long yawn. Steve just lays there, staring at the wall and trying silently not to panic.

Bucky’s breathing eventually evens out and slows. Steve’s left there yearning, tortured, willing the memory of Buck’s lips down to a place where it can’t hurt him anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooh boy - did I think my fic writing days were behind me. it's hard not to wax poetic about these two, though!
> 
> please drop me a quick comment or kudos if you enjoyed! thoughts & prayers to all who watched infinity war.


End file.
